8 great spots to read

April 03, 2008|By Christopher Borrelli, TRIBUNE REPORTER

The trouble with revealing a great secret spot to read in peace is the secret part. So forgive me. But try this. Head to the Book Cellar in Lincoln Square (4736 N. Lincoln Ave.) and as you enter, turn left. There are four comfy chairs and a large round table; there is a cafe; and if you haven't brought a book, there are, of course, books. And strangely, it's often quiet -- in all, a good place for extended reading. So, as mud gives way to grass, here are a handful of other secret spots for reading around Chicago. But don't tell anyone.

Great Hall at Union Station

210 S. Canal St.; open daily, 5 a.m.-12:30 a.m.

For a cavernous indoor space where movie gunshots have rung out and millions trudged, the first thing you notice is the hush -- the soothing murmur of it all. Backpackers huddle over maps, whispering. A man sleeping on a bench sleeps upright, tipping forward every few minutes, catching himself before each tumble. The mood is less glum than reverential. Daniel Burnham dreamed this, its 115-foot glass ceiling throwing down soft light in the sun and dim patter in the rain. The architect of the 1909 Plan for Chicago, he famously said "Make no little plans," but he probably never considered this room becoming a repository for nothing but. Most travelers use the east end of the station today; the closest your average Chicagoan gets to the Great Hall now is the movie "The Untouchables." But readers still haunt its rows of long wooden benches -- hard in the backs, and worn smooth in the seats, after 83 years of sitting.

When lingering starts to feel like loitering: 3 hours

Behind the Evanston Art Center

2603 Sheridan Rd., Evanston; 847-475-5300; open daily, 7 a.m.-11 p.m.

Literally a place of one's own. Add one more quiet reader to the mix and the placidity evaporates. So this is tricky. Saunter behind this Tudor mansion, which has held the Evanston Art Center for 42 years, and you come upon a single wooden bench. This bench has a view you can't afford. At your feet, there is a tangle of greenery; beyond that, the small spit of Lighthouse Beach; and beyond that, a clear view of Lake Michigan. The grounds were designed by famed Prairie School landscape architect Alfred Caldwell; and to your right is the stoic roving beam of the Grosse Point Lighthouse. Summer here gets loud -- that beach is within tantalizing reach of the neighborhood kids. But on the plus side: Free parking. On the other hand: Avoid Sunday morning. A local group holds church services here every Sunday at 10 a.m.

When lingering starts to feel like loitering: 1 hour

Botany Pond, University of Chicago

1101 E. 57th St.; open daily, dawn to dusk

On a campus jammed block to block with looming Gothic cliffs, it's a pleasant afterthought -- a patch of green and pool of lily pond so quaint you want to pinch its cheeks. Mallards wade, goldfish dart. Green areas are at a minimum, a few feet wide at most, met by a sidewalk. It was part of Frederick Law Olmsted's original landscaping, rehabbed in 2004. There's a stone bridge and stone bench -- hard but cleverly augmented with stone footstools. It's in the quadrangle behind the Zoology Building, called Hull Court. Michael LaBarbera's office sits just above the pond. He teaches invertebrate anatomy and says Botany has three different species of turtle, five different types of dragonfly. "It's probably the most intense concentration of biodiversity in the city," he says.

Peter Vitale likes to think his Lincoln Park coffeehouse was born for classic shut-out-the-world reading. His great-great grandmother was Kate Chopin, best known for her stories of Louisiana and the early feminist classic "The Awakening." He spent so much time in law school looking for a good place to concentrate, he added, "I appreciate how hard it can be." Though open only since February, Noble Tree appears deceptively lived-in. Wander upstairs, and you're in an old three-story home -- still furnished like a home. Vitale bought the stone row house with Philip Tadros, who converted an old pharmacy in Uptown into the Dollop Coffee Co. Give them points for authenticity. The soft reconditioned couches come from antique shops around Belmont; and the wingback chairs once lived in the Drake Hotel. Every table has a lamp, the coffee is Metropolis, and that all-encompassing quiet -- astonishing for a busy coffeehouse.